Michael Martin said Ireland and Spain would be calling for a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Michael Martin has accused Israel of breaching humanitarian law saying its response in Gaza was “fully disproportionate.”
“We believe that the response has been fully disproportionate and has also been, in our view, a breach of humanitarian law in terms of the destruction of Gaza and also in terms of the killing of civilians, innocent men, women and children,” Michael Martin said in a doorstep speech ahead of an EU Foreign Ministers Council meeting, the Anadolu news agency reported.
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“We believe that cannot be justified,” Martin added. “The population of Gaza has been collectively punished because of the activities of Hamas, that’s not acceptable.”
He reportedly said Israel has “not been listening” to the EU and the US and urged that it was “time that Israel pull back and stop this, and then we get the cease-fire, get the hostages released and get some good humanitarian aid in as fast as we possibly can.”
Trade with Israel
Martin said Ireland and Spain would be calling for a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which forms the legal basis governing the bloc’s trade relations with Israel, during the meeting.
He also said the ministers would discuss the current situation about a peace plan, as well as the recognition of a Palestinian state, and humanitarian aid issues.
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The Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares also called for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, saying that people in the besieged enclave cannot go another day without access to basic needs.
“We are going to continue calling now more than ever for a permanent ceasefire given the risk that Israeli military operations will extend to Rafah, which would further increase this humanitarian catastrophe that has already claimed 34,000 lives,” Albares said.
“We are going to request that all land points be opened once and for all for humanitarian aid to access,” the foreign minister stressed.
“The civilian population of Gaza cannot wait another day to have access to things as basic as food, medicine, and drinking water,” he warned.
UN Membership Vote
Regarding last week’s vote on Palestine’s UN membership, he underlined Spain’s position of being in favor of Palestine’s entry into the union.
“I believe that on Thursday, there was enormous support for Palestine’s entry into the United Nations,” he said, according to the Anadolu report.
“It has been a very broad support and, of course, what Spain is going to do… is that sovereign recognition (of Palestine) as a member state, as 139 countries on the planet have already done, including 9 from the European Union.”
The US on Thursday vetoed a resolution that, if passed, would have opened the door to full Palestinian membership of the United Nations.
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The Palestinian presidency condemned the US move and said in a statement that the US veto is “dishonest, immoral and unjustified” and exposes the contradictions of US policy, which claims on the one hand that it supports the two-state solution, while preventing the international institution from implementing this solution.
Over 34, 100 Killed
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 34,151 Palestinians have been killed, and 77,084 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(Anadolu, PC)
